Wastewater treatment process

Abstract

Disclosed is a single basin, fill and draw wastewater treatment apparatus and method having a unique influent delivery manifold which delivers the incoming influent into a first zone that prevents hydraulic turbulence or short circuiting of un-treated influent from degrading the effluent quality during the decant phase of its cycle while continuously accommodating influent flows and reduces the internal hydraulic velocities to a slow enough rate to utilize the settling sludge blanket as a natural biological filter to absorb and treat influent flows during the air/off phase of its cycle.

Having described our invention, what we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent is: 
     
       1. A single basin .cyclic wastewater treatment process comprising the facets of; a. passing influent into a single basin through at least one inlet;   b. allowing said influent to continuously, be received from said at least one inlet into a manifold adapted for substantially mitigating splash energy created when said influent comes in contact with a common water level inside said manifold by containing said influent inside of said manifold and isolating said influent from the area within a first enclosure;   c. allowing said influent to continuously be received through said manifold such that, said influent will exit below said common water level but above a settled sludge blanket zone;   d. allowing said influent to continuously be received through said manifold such that, influent will exit said manifold below said common water level at a substantially reduced velocity than with which said influent entered said manifold;   e. allowing said influent to continuously be hydraulically displaced from said manifold in a lateral hydraulic flow direction as opposed to a downward or upward hydraulic flow direction-into a first enclosure having walls, an open top, and an open bottom with an edge, said edge forming a skirt, said skirt being suspended above a bottom of a second enclosure to create an open area, and said second enclosure having walls;   f. allowing said common water level of said manifold and the water level of said first enclosure to communicate and hydraulically equalize within said single basin and flow from said first enclosure underneath said skirt in a lateral hydraulic flow direction into said second enclosure of said single basin, as opposed to a downward or upward hydraulic flow direction;   g. the receiving of said influent being continued during a phase of aerating and mixing said influent;   h. the receiving of said influent being continued while ceasing said aeration and said mixing and initiating   i. a setting phase in which activated sludge in said influent settles said first enclosure and said second enclosure after said aeration, creating an activated sludge blanket in lower zones of said first enclosure and said second enclosure such that, the interface of said settled activated sludge blanket of said first enclosure and said second enclosure is substantially above said open area created between said skirt edge of said first enclosure and said bottom of said second enclosure   j. the receiving of said influent being continued during a decanting phase in which said settled activated sludge blanket serves as a biological contactor to absorb and filter said influent during hydraulic-flow equalization as said influent passes from inside said first enclosure down through said settled activated sludge blanket within said first enclosure laterally through said activated sludge in said open area and into said settled activated sludge blanket within said second enclosure and displacing treated effluent or supernatant from said settled activated sludge blanket into an upper clarified supernatant zone that exists above said settled activated sludge blanket within said second enclosure without causing upset of said settled sludge;   k. repeating said aerating, settling and decanting phases while preventing influent in said first enclosure from being mixed with treated effluent within said second enclosure during said settling and decanting phases.   
     
     
       2. The wastewater treatment process of claim 1 including a step of raising or lowering said first enclosure to increase or decrease the area beneath said skirt of said first enclosure.